Upbringing
March 8, 2023 | 7:07 p.m
Minutes after I logged on to social media as Tiffany Marks, a fictional 14-year-old girl, I was inundated with videos promoting underage drinking and gun violence, along with tips from Andrew Tate, the notoriously misogynist influencer who imprisoned in Romania as part of a rape and sex trafficking operation.
But even more disturbing were the posts from young women who shared the intimate details of their struggles with depression, anxiety, extreme loneliness and other mental health issues.
“I’m really glad my friends don’t realize how much I’m struggling right now, but it hurts to realize none of them know me well enough to notice,” lamented one teen on TikTok.
Another revealed that she goes on an “emotional bend” when she feels like she’s not getting enough attention, causing her to behave erratically and engage in dangerous social media activities like communicating with unsavory people involved. A third concerned soul said she “feels like death”.
The Post launched an investigation into the social media algorithms and content curating the programs targeting teenage girls.
A July 2021 report by Rush University Medical Center found that excessive consumption of mental health content on TikTok could be at the root of the recent “self-diagnosis” trend — with millions of online branders popularizing themselves and their posts Adding hashtags like #Tourettes , #BDP (Borderline Personality Disorder), #Bipolar, and #DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder) — without a doctor’s endorsement.
I had previously spent five days impersonating a 14-year-old boy named Jayden on TikTok and YouTube and was shocked by the racist, violent and misogynistic content I was fed.
I decided to replicate my experiences as a teenager — creating social media profiles under a fake name to see what the algorithms were sending me — and found both strong similarities and differences. (I have not posted any content or directly interacted with other users.)
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Recent studies have found that excessive consumption of mental health content on TikTok can lead girls to misdiagnose themselves with disorders.
“I’m actually glad my friends don’t realize how much I’m struggling right now, but it hurts to realize none of them know me well enough to notice,” lamented one teenager (left). tik tok
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There have been several posts from young women sharing the intimate details of their struggles with depression, anxiety, extreme loneliness and other mental health issues.
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As the fictional Tiffany Marks, The Post discovered that Gen Z girls can be bombarded with surprising content that could have long-term negative effects. tick tock
As Tiffany, I was immediately fed alcohol, which wasn’t the case for me as Jayden.
A clip of a 15-year-old blonde boasting her mother’s blessing about downing booze was one of the first snaps to hit Tiffany’s “For You Page” on TikTok.
TikTok and YouTube algorithms have curated alarming content for a fictional 14-year-old girl’s social media accounts. During an investigation into social media algorithms conducted by The Post, clips promoting underage drinking, gun violence, the thoughts of jailed vlogger Andrew Tate and more flooded the teen’s fake TikTok and YouTube profiles.
Videos of drunk girls fighting in the street were followed by snaps of Gen Zers insisting that tequila is the “ultimate hot girl liquor” because it makes you appear “thinner.”
“How-to” posts about making the perfect black-out rage gallon, or “borg” — a 128-ounce cocktail made with water, vodka, a caffeinated flavor enhancer, and powdered electrolytes — quickly became permanent fixtures on my timeline. Binge drinking the TikTok-famous concoction, which has amassed over 83.2 million views on the platform, hospitalized dozens of college kids at the University of Massachusetts just last Saturday.
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College kids and underage party-goers in Massachusetts were recently hospitalized after drinking Borgs.
The “borg” trend continues to gain momentum online, enticing underage drinkers to drink.
Videos focused on alcohol and drinking were featured on Tiffany’s feed.
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Even more alarming was the avalanche of videos promoting guns and 36-year-old Tate’s abusive thoughts. He was banned from TikTok and YouTube and other platforms in 2022, but clips of him still dominate social media.
A clip of a man firing bullets from a P80 pistol was the first item to appear in my YouTube shorts section. Then came a post showing a man holding a gun to the back of someone’s head, with the caption “How to End Up in Heaven.” A post mocking an 18-year-old woman who survived being shot nine times with an AK-47 and AR-15 was also sent to me, followed by a video titled “5 Cheap Handguns That Won’t To block”.
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Videos of shootings were a staple of the 14-year-old’s YouTube account.
Disturbing images of people brandishing and shooting guns emerged as suggested YouTube shorts.
Videos of Andrew Tate, the notoriously misogynistic influencer who was arrested in Romania as part of a rape and sex trafficking operation, were also part of Tiffany’s feed.
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A November 2022 study by Morning Consult found that 84% of young women in the US are active YouTube users and 75% have TikTok accounts.
Other statistics are more worrying.
According to CDC statistics released last month, most teenage girls (57%) felt persistently sad or hopeless in 2021, which is twice as likely as teenage boys (29%). Almost one in three teenage girls seriously consider attempting suicide.
The inner workings of the algorithms that social media platforms use is a mystery, but what seems unquestionable is the negative impact they have on young women.
Filed under Andrew Tate binge drinking girls guns mental illness social media teens tiktok underage drinking viral videos youtube 3/8/23
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